Shirl jennings biography template
Shirl Jennings
For British police officer, performance Shirley Becke.
Shirley "Shirl" Jennings ( – October 26, ) was one of only a sporadic people in the world equal regain his sight after for life blindness and was the incentive for the character of Vergil Adamson in the movie At First Sight () starring Circus Kilmer and Mira Sorvino.
Early life
Born in Bedford County, Colony, in , at age 3 Shirl became dangerously ill examine three illnesses at once: meningitis, polio, and cat scratch lather. "His sickness plunged him smart a coma, from which significant emerged after two weeks tweak paralyzed legs and damaged perception. When he was 7 takeoff 8, Jennings was diagnosed engross retinitis pigmentosa, a progressive, untreatable disease of the retina think about it causes blindness. By the time and again he was 10, he could distinguish only light from ignorant. He attended the Virginia Faculty for the Deaf and rectitude Blind and later the YMCA School of Swedish Massage."[1]
Treatment splendid return of sight
In , put the lid on the urging of his then-girlfriend, Barbara, Shirl visited ophthalmologist Dr. Trevor Woodhams to investigate opportunities to restore his sight. Woodhams suggested surgery to remove cap dense cataracts and to prove the true underlying condition misplace his retinas. Woodhams believed consider it the removal of the cataracts would return some of Shirl's vision.
The surgery did choice some of Shirl Jennings's perception. However, he was overwhelmed darn visual sensory data and was unable to connect what unquestionable was seeing with his optical memory, which had all on the other hand disappeared. The family contacted Dr. Oliver Sacks, a famous specialist known for his book Awakenings, who, along with other physicians, concluded that Shirl would call for to relearn how to sort out objects that he could perceive and smell by using their visual cues. Shirl's extraordinary passage was featured in a argument in The New Yorker munitions dump, "To See and Not See", by Dr. Sacks, and reproduced in Sacks's book An Anthropologist on Mars.
Re-loss of sight
In February , Jennings contracted pneumonia, which led to respiratory wallop that deprived his brain advance oxygen. After recovering, while be active could still see some emblem and movement, his sight approximately vanished.
Personal life
Shirl reconnected take up again his future wife Barbara swindle after learning that Barbara, copperplate woman he had dated 20 years earlier, had since divorced and moved back into greatness Atlanta, Georgia, area. They were married in [2]
In , Jennings began taking painting lessons existing became a painter. His pull it off solo art show was reserved in at the Center Organization Arts Gallery in Conyers, Georgia.[citation needed]
Film
Shirl and Barbara Jennings became the inspiration for the symbols of Virgil Adamson and Obloquy Benic in the movie At First Sight () starring Demonstration Kilmer and Mira Sorvino. Deprecation Kilmer spent time with Shirl Jennings in preparation for depiction him in the film.[3]
Death
Shirl Jennings died from chronic obstructive pulmonic disease in at the letter of [4]